Sonorant-only phonology

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What are sonorants?

Sonorants are one of two primary superclasses of sounds produced in speech.

The other is Obstruentsplosives (p, b, t, d, k, g, etc), fricatives (f, v, θ, ð, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, etc), taps & flaps (), and others.

Sonorants include:

Class
common examples
IPA

V — Vowels

i, e, a, o, u, ʌ

i, ɪ, y, e, ə, ɜ, ɛ, æ, a, ɑ, ɒ, ʌ, ɔ, o, ʊ, ɵ, u

N — Nasals

m, n, ñ, ŋ

m, n, ɲ, ɳ, ŋ

Y — Semi-vowels — liquids, approximants, glides

w, y, l, r

w, β̞, ʋ, ð̞, l, ɫ, ɹ, j, ʎ, ɰ

As you can see, there are a lot of available phones to choose from! And this is not an exhaustive list. So by no means would it be a challenging language to create.

It would most likely feature a lot of diphthongs, and probably some pronunciation­—grammar morphology by which certain sounds are metastasised in order to produce word mutations, due to the smaller range of available consonants.

Syllable structures:

Monophthongs

-

-N

-Y

-YN

V

a

an

ay

ayn

N-

na

nan

nay

nayn

Y-

ya

yan

yay

yayn

NY-

nya

nyan

nyay

nyayn

Diphthongs

-

-N

-Y

-YN

VV

oa

oan

oay

oayn

N-

noa

noan

noay

noayn

Y-

yoa

yoan

yoay

yoayn

NY-

nyoa

nyoan

nyoay

nyoayn

Available phones

Vowels

i ɪ y e ə ɜ ɛ æ a ɑ ɒ ʌ ɔ o ʊ ɵ u

Nasals

m n ɲ ɳ ŋ ɴ

n͡m ɳ͡m ŋ͡m

Liquids

l ɫ ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠

Approximants

w β̞ ʋ ð̞ ɹ ɹ̠ ɻ j ɥ ɰ

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